By Stephen Downes
October 14, 2003
The E-Learning Market: It's About the
Learner, Not the Instructor!
It has been a long
time coming, and the concept still hasn't penetrated
class-based university online learning systems, but the
re-emergence of e-learning is beginning to happen with a
greater realization on the part of vendors that their
client is not the instructor, but the learner. "Vendors and
end-users are starting to get it right. They understand
that learning is not about automating the existing
instructor-led training process. It's not even about new
channels for delivering content. It's about delivering the
right content, at the right time, over the right channel to
the right person. It's about learner-centricity." Well,
yeah. But it's not just about delivering content.
One step at a time, I guess. By Massood Zarrabian, eLearn
Magazine, October, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Microsoft Office as Strip
Mall
Short commentary and more links to the
story I picked up last week where Microsoft is making
access to Amazon available through office applications. The
author asks, "Microsoft and Amazon are all about the bottom
line. I ask again - do we really want educational bloggers
hooking into commercial retailers or libraries?" By Jenny
Levine, The Shifted Librarian, October 14, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Interview: SixApart's Degree of Weblog
Integration
"We recognize that this works the
way users work." That's the advantage SixApart's
MoveableType is working with as it tries to develop wider
business applications for the blogging software. "The three
markets are marketing communications; inside the intranet
it's kind of knowledge management; and then the third
market is nanopublishing, and that's probably a smaller
niche..." Quite so, and as usual, it is in the exchange of
free content that a web technology such as this excels. By
Mark Jones, InfoWorld, October 14, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
IDC
Finds Corporate Training Markets Making Steady
Gains
The worst is over, according to a new
report frim IDC, and the corporate eLearning market should
make steady gains over the next few years, reaching $10.6
billion in the U.S. by 2007. By Press Release, PR Newswire,
October 14, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Microsoft Plans Longhorn Client in 2005,
Server in 2006
Microsoft is now expected to
delay the release of it's 'Longhorn' Windows client until
the end of 2005, and perhaps even as late as 2006. This
takes it past the cut-off (in my opinion) for the
deployment of 64-bit computing, which means (again in my
opinion) that aside from a minor upgrade, Windows XP will
be the last 32-bit version of Windows, and Longhorn (or
whatever it's called on release), which will include
'trusted computing' components, will be released and
marketed as the first major 64-bit operating system, and
therefore a 'must-have'. By Paula Rooney, Internet Week,
October 10, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Report Slams Web
Personalization
This is very interesting.
Althouigh personalization has been the mantra preached by
consultants over the last year or more, a new report
suggests that users would benefit more from better site
design. "Given flexible, usable navigation and search, Web
site visitors will be more satisfied with their experiences
and will find fewer barriers to the profitable behavior
sought by site operators. In fact, good navigation can
replace personalization in most cases." According to the
report, personalization is not only less effective, it is
also much more costly. Moreover, personalization requires
the obtaining of information from readers, something which
in these spam-filled days breeds suspicion and mistrust. I
think that the report has a point, but my response is more
in tune with broadview's Richard Hughes: "Anything can be
done badly and expensively," including personalization. By
Paul Festa, CNet News.Com, October 14, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
U.S. Policy Restricts Scientific Publishing
by Researchers in Countries Under Trade
Embargo
Five countries are under current U.S.
trade embargos: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Sudan.
Following investigations by the IEEE a couple of weeks ago,
it turns out that these embargos include academic
'services' such as the editing of scientific papers. The
U.S. government decision has embroiled the organization and
raised concerns among other international organizations
that they, too, will be subject to the same restrictions.
What really galled members was that the IEEE simply began
applying the sanctions, without protest, in 2002. "It's a
breach of trust," said Kenneth R. Foster, a professor of
bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, an IEEE
member, and one of the most outspoken critics of the IEEE's
approach to Iranian engineers. "My principal concern was
their very bad treatment of their own members." More on
this item here. By Lila Guterman, Chronicle of
Higher Education, October 2, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Copyright / Copyleft
Questions are
being asked about Questia's online library after one author
finds her books scanned and placed behind a subscription
wall without her advice or consent. The company has formed
numerous partnerships with publishers
who, according to the author, will offer a contract if
authors complain, but for only a "slight profit". According
to the author, Questia also "seems to have launched the
new Tauchnitz pirated volumes in violation of copyright
laws." In my own tour through Questia I found works by
authors such as David Hume, who wrote in the 1700s, also
behind a subscription wall (and listed as published in
1998). Questia, which bills itself as the world's largest
online library, has been around for a couple of years and
lists among its partners companies such as Harcourt and
Innodata. Access to Questia is $US 19.95 per month. By
Julia Bolton Holloway, BOAI, October 14, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
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